General

How To Pick Up College Girls – What You Need To Know

In this instalment of “Interview of Seduction Masters”, we talk to Mark Redman, the author of Conquer Your Campus.

Mark is currently with Christian Hudson, who was instrumental in setting up and running Charisma Arts with Wayne Elise (better known as “Juggler” in Neil Strauss’ book The Game). Mark’s book, Conquer Your Campus, is widely hailed as the de facto standard in ‘college game’ and at the time of the interview, is still the only book in this particular niche.

In this interview, Mark shares his unique insights on college pickup, and how it is different from meeting and seducing women in general.

Derek Rake: Mark, thanks for agreeing to an interview. Firstly, how is picking women up at college is different from the real world? What are the important differences?

Hey Rake, happy to take a sec and answer some fun questions.  OK, first difference is that you don’t want to think about picking up girls in college, simply because basically a small social environment where the guys who hook up.

The 20% guys who are getting laid consistently are ‘preselected’.  Like, they need some game when they start talking to a girl, but their ability to build attraction is more about their pre-selection than it is their “attract game.”

Derek Rake: So the trick here is to be the 20% guy?

Absolutely. So the trick is to learn how to be that guy - or at least act like one - so that girls are attracted to you.

Derek Rake: Got it. Now, I really like your “tribe mentality” theory (page 23 of Conquer Your Campus) and how it is applied to a college setting. However, these could be easily used at any social setting - at work, for example.

Yeah, man, I see what you mean. I’ve been out of college a year now and I definitely see it here.  And in general if you think about it, anywhere that there’s a semi-closed social circle (small towns, work, hobby cliques, scenes) you basically have the same thing, so you have to know what the scene’s all about, like what it is to be at the top of the scene – and how to work it in your favor.

Derek Rake: In your book Conquer Your Campus, you’ve drawn out a very interesting parallel between the clubbing scene and college fraternities. Any quick tips on how to game fraternities?

Yeah, get in one or become friends with them.  I mean, you want to show up, be cool, try to hook the guys at the house up with something – some beer, some girls, etc. 

Show them you respect what they’re doing at their party.  Ask if they need any help.  It’s like an initiation ritual where you gotta show that it’s worth it for them to let you into their club.  You see where the mindset shift is here?

Derek Rake: Yes. It’s the “what you can do for them” mindset rather than going to the place to look for women for sex.

Exactly. It’s not about showing up at the party and gaming the girls.  It’s about showing up at the party and already knowing - or at least being in with - the girls because you know the guys throwing the party.

Derek Rake: Excellent point. Mark - in some parts of your work, you get heavy on inner game - for example, being the 20% Man and development of the Four Traits (pages 56 onwards). This is markedly different from other products on dating and seduction - which rely very much on routines and lines which are very ‘tactical’ in nature.

Well, Rake, as you know me, I was a routine guy for the first six months I was at school. everyone thought I was weird.  So I worked with my mentor to fix that up a bit, and things got good.  So that’s the biggest reason - its what helped me get girls. 

And I just kind of distilled that stuff down.  I don’t know if I’d totally call it inner game - like it’s not like NLP to build confidence - but I guess its just ‘how to act and be’ rather than ‘what to say’.  Once guys get the ‘how to act and be’ stuff (which ppl tell me I’ve nailed in terms of teaching it in Conquer Your Campus) they often just say great things.

Derek Rake:  You get into an awful lot of details in some parts of the book - there’s pinpoint specific advice on how to meet college girls on the streets, bars, coffee shops, libraries and even at pre-parties! Care to comment more on this?

You need different strategies for different scenes.  So if you know how to play them (kind of like what I said before about frat scenes but with more details and step-by-step stuff) then you can just rock in and get it right.

Derek Rake: Specifically on developing rapport with college girls - any tips to share, and pitfalls to avoid?

Special for DerekRake.com readers…here are two quick tips. Firstly, talk about social things - where they hang out, where they went out last weekend, stuff like that.  And of course, sports are huge if you go to a school big on athletics.

Second tip - only discuss their major to take an opportunity to bust on them. So if a girl says “English” you can be like “huh, that’s funny ‘cause you seem to speak it pretty well.”  She’ll do one of those “har har aren’t you funny” things and then you roll on.  Most guys dwell on it so the fact that you’re not trying to build rapport on the topic says a lot. You don’t want to dwell on her major for too long when you’re getting to know her, it’s not something that 20% guys discuss.

Derek Rake: You have got a chapter on online game in your book. Why is this component essential when it comes to attracting college girls?

Facebook tells a girl if you’re “in” or not.  It doesn’t take a lot to make it work for you, I mean, you don’t typically want to be meeting girls on Facebook.  And to be honest, I dropped off Facebook my senior year, so once you get to a certain point it’s all good. 

But there’s certain thing you have to get right if you’re on it because any girl who’s interested in you is going to be Facebook stalking you.

Derek Rake: Lastly, Mark, what is the one thing that any guy can immediately use to see instant results in their college ‘game’?

I always say this: have fun.  Seriously!

Look, there’s a template in a girl’s mind about how a guy who is attractive in college acts.  She kind of has this notion going into college and there’s four or five traits that, if you exhibit them, will create a strong match in that template.  And attraction just happens. 

But without those traits, it doesn’t matter what material you’re using. she won’t be attracted to you.  And the biggest, most important trait of an attractive guy is someone who has tons of fun wherever he goes.  He’s making stuff happen and he’s engaged with everyone and he’s smiling.  He’s not in a corner being too cool.  He is tearing it up in the middle of people until he picks that one girl who he wants to rock with for the night.

So if you can go out with your goal being ‘have fun’ you will meet more girls and you’ll build more attraction.

 

Mark Redman is the author of Conquer Your Campus – the definitive manual on dating and seduction on college game. My verdict: absolutely essential if you’re in college, but the principles can be used effectively in any social setting – especially the Tribe Mentality and 20% Man tactics. A very good addition to your seduction arsenal.

If you have got any questions, leave your comment on this blog post and we’ll answer them.

Click here for Conquer Your Campus 

© DerekRake.com and Zen & The Art of Seduction. Go to http://www.TheRakeLetter.com for a free trial subscription of The Rake Letter - a premium e-newsletter featuring the best of the Zen Seduction techniques to help you become better with women.

Welcome back! If you haven't done so already, subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

©2008 Derek Rake,6001 Beach Road #08-07, Golden Mile Tower, Singapore 199589. All rights reserved.